The National Health Summit will be conducted on September 15, 2016 at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) by the Department of Health (DOH) with the poorest of the Filipinos as its main focus. The goal is Universal Health Care (UHC) said Health Secretary Dr. Paulyn Rosell-Ubial.

Another goal is the availability of low-cost medical care that will free the poor from profit oriented health services. The third goal is that Filipinos who avail of health care get the respect and a sense of being valued.

The Health Secretary explained that all of these goals are anchored on the theme “Strengthening Partnerships to Achieve All for Health Towards Health for All.”

“And the underlying concept in our slogan or theme is that ‘health is everyone’s concern’ and not just of the health workers or the health sectors… Even the individual should take a stake at his own health or it should also be individual’s responsibility,” Ubial said.

Early intervention on the health needs of the very poor must be readily available so as to prevent full blown or very severe cases.

“The National Health Summit) aims to present E-Health System tools to strengthen local health governance, secure local and national support for the implementation of the Duterte Health Agenda,” the health secretary shared.

It is crucial that local partners support the goals of the DOH in the health system since public health care has already been devolved to the local government units.

”It is devolved to the local government units (LGUs) and we know if we work with them as partners, we can attain so much in terms of advancing our goal of UHC,” she said.

The National Health Summit’s expected outcome will be the availability of basic free check-ups to 20 million poor Filipinos after 100 days of the summit.

The focus of the program will be the poor that will be identified by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) with its National Household Targetting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR). These are the poorest sectors of the Philippine population that the government must serve and be reached with its health services.

The cooperation of LGUs will be crucial in bringing quality health services to the poor. This is sincluded in the 10 – Point Economic Agenda of the Duterte administration.